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The Day I Wanted To Quit

I’ve got to be honest. The last few days I’ve really been struggling. I can’t help but think how much easier it is to simply not care, as I have for so much of my life, which has gotten me to right where I’m at. All this work I’m putting in to better myself is just that…it’s work! I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little bit weary on the journey.

A few days ago, a story hit the national media that at first I didn’t pay attention to, thinking it was just tabloid smut, but as the information unfolded, the story grew, and many people are sitting with their chins on the ground asking a lot of questions. Other than a sunken feeling in my heart, I have had a really hard time reconciling this news story in my mind and heart. I honestly have no idea how to feel. This story unlocked one of the recesses of my mind that holds some pretty ugly stuff that I’ve had to process and deal with in recent years. I started to go to a scary place in my mind, a place that I thought after all the work I had done to heal from would not be so bad…but it’s still there, waiting to suck me back in. I won’t get sucked into it though. I won’t go back to that broken place where I could barely get out of bed because I was so consumed with everything surrounding the issue. I know better ways to deal with the feelings.

Problem was, I didn’t use those better ways. I ate more. I didn’t go off the deep end or anything into a full-fledged binge, but I ate more than I needed to. Shockingly, it didn’t make the bad feelings go away. It made me feel worse. Instead of just taking it as information that I needed to deal with feelings and not food, my mind went into “all or nothing” mode. Well, if I overate, then I might as well not go to physical therapy, because, you know, if I’m just going to balloon back up and keep gaining weight, then there is no point in healing my back. (I still went to PT) Then it was the same thoughts surrounding going to the gym. (I still went to the gym). Then it was beating myself up because I went more slowly than usual at the gym. I wanted to walk away from everything completely.

And I wonder why I grow weary? I can’t shut off my head! That’s why! I can’t just “be.” I can’t just take something small and leave it as it is, I have to blow it completely out of proportion and let myself be consumed by it. I am truly my own worst enemy.

I’m frustrated. I lose sight of God’s perfect will for me and get stuck on my own agenda. I look at the weight loss graphs and instead of seeing a perfect downhill slope, it looks like a staircase–losing, maintaining for a few weeks, losing some more. I start to research all of the things that I’m possibly doing wrong scientifically so that I can correct them. I let little setbacks become giant stumbling blocks in my path.

God didn’t allow me to come this far (and in the grand scheme of things, I’m not that far yet) to allow me to fail. It’s a reminder to come back to my first love. To rely solely on Him. He will guide me. He will comfort me. He will calm my anxious heart. He will show me the proper reaction to a situation–if I seek Him first. I have to come back to God, first and always. It’s a simple but sobering answer to all of my problems. There’s no quick fix, there’s no mathematical solution, there’s no timetable. There’s just God working in my life to get me to not rely on me for what I need. This is where faith steps in. I have to have faith in the things unseen, unknown, not proven to me. The only way I’m going to see the result of fully relying on God is leaning on the promise that I don’t have to have all the answers, that I’m not alone in this. It’s an interesting place to be.

So, for today, I’m trying to be a little bit gentler and understanding with myself. Rome wasn’t built in a day. It’s okay to be frustrated, and I am, but I know it won’t last forever. And I’m not quitting.

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One thought on “The Day I Wanted To Quit”

Elizabeth Welch

Live! Things get quickly out of proportion when we don’t live in each moment. Instead, we linger on moments – positive and negative. Longing for the joyful moments of the past instead of creating them. Reliving unpleasant moments in our mind and out loud as we express them to others. Constantly going over what we should have done, could have said, or the future possible conversation with the offending person. You are not alone in this mental gameplay or the physical repercussions of dealing with both through the enjoyment of food.

When I think about the role that food plays in our lives, I couldn’t help think about this. The meal of yesterday reminds us of a wonderful emotional connection, a person or a milestone in life. That warm, telling reminder of good, and it rushes back even without us thinking about it. I think the connection of food simply from good moments is so deep that we even cease to remember when we made those connections.

Think of a little baby that is cradled and fed by her mother or father. The warmth and touch of the body of the person holding the baby. The soothing tones of a voice reassuring the child. The smiles cast down toward a serious face. Who thinks of this when feeding themselves? Yet these connections are embedded in our minds: safety, nurturing, sustenance and love.

Get up every day and simply, live! Don’t be too casual about situations that you become flippant in living; however, don’t dwell on things so much that it moves beyond an appropriate allocation of time. Dwelling is about placement and not about imprisonment.

Food is not our friend, it is a means to sustain, declare the importance of a moment and celebrate the bounty of what God has given.

I, too, am struggling right now after an original weight loss of 59 pounds. In the last four months, I have gained 14 pounds back. Some would tell me that I should not worry about it. Why am I gaining? Mainly because I am living in a hotel with no oven, getting up at 5 to 6am to start working before I even head to the office and not eating. Not eating can be just as difficult as eating a lot. Too much work, not enough good food and allocating time to everyone else instead of myself.

I understand it. I will worry about it because 14 flips to 41 and I will be back to being very unhappy. I need to simplify my summer schedule to get back on track. Hopefully, we can get into a house soon and start really living because right now I am not settled in my life and this is personally affecting me.

Recently, we sang an old songster number from training school days at the corps. It has been coming to mind while I was writing to you…

“Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share. Jesus knows our every weakness. Take it to the Lord in prayer.”